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Market rules, changes in regulations for users and producers, technological innovation and economic development are important factors shaping energy transitions. Therefore, explaining energy transitions requires a multidisciplinary insight to investigate these factors. The study of energy transitions faces an analytical and methodological challenge, particularly in communicating trends shaping the energy systems in developing economies. The existing literature is not consistent in identifying these disciplines nor proposing how they can be combined. In this sense, this paper proposes a new and simple methodological path to assess variables and theories. It conceptualizes energy transitions as a co-evolution of two types of systems: system innovation with its roots in evolutionary, institutional economics, science and technology studies (STS); and energy systems with its roots in neoclassical and evolutionary economics. From how to conduct a systematic literature review, to how best integrate theories and the analytical framework in which key questions can be answered, the paper elevates the role of political science, as policies play a prominent role in shaping energy transitions. This paper responds to those who have pointed out that the political economy of energy transitions is a vastly understudied area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

But before getting to these criticisms, it is necessary to understand Tang's main target: the New Institutional Economics (NIE). By putting more focus on individual self-interest and bottom-up development than their OIE predecessors, it has been argued that NIE economists implicitly make the case for a government that is limited to the protection of property and contract enforcement. In I The Institutional Foundation of Economic Development i , Fudan University Professor Shiping Tang presents a detailed description of the way institutions impact economic development. [Extracted from the article]

In order to grasp some of the key intellectual developments and trends that shaped the global politics of twentieth century and continue to shape our own world—neo-classical economics, modernization theory, deterrence theory, the democratic peace, among others—it is necessary to explore the history of the human sciences. It is important, in other words, to examine the role of the modern research university in producing and diffusing ideas about the self, society, the economy and world order. International Relations (IR), and political science more generally, played a significant role in this story. In recent years we have seen a growth of interest in the history of IR, though it is still an underdeveloped area of research. Among other things, scholars have shown that many of the foundational myths of the discipline—the views that inform textbook understandings of the past and present—are deeply flawed. This article first surveys this recent work, highlighting its strengths and weaknesses, and then proceeds to offer some thoughts on future directions for research. It identifies a range of questions and topics that have yet to be adequately addressed, and draws on the latest methodological work in intellectual history, highlighting some new interpretative approaches that can enrich scholarship in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of Africa has been undermined by attempts to develop and apply theories that claim universal relevance as "objective" science, whether neoclassical economics, rational-choice theory, dependency theory, or some versions of Marxist theory. Such efforts at a scientistic universalism leads to "one size fits all" theorizing that have been found historically fallacious, intellectually misleading, and politically disastrous. The creation of a universal theory has been rejected as the end and purpose of social science and history, and, instead, tried to employ theory as a conceptual toolkit that makes possible the analysis of the similarities and differences between real world cases, with the belief that understanding lies in the explanation of complexity and contingency in a small universe of cases with distinctive idiosyncrasies and trajectories of change.